Soane completed this meticulous drawing of Carlo Marchionni's Roman villa suburbana designed for Cardinal Alessandro Albani and considered to be an 18th-century masterpiece. A further two sheets of plans of the ground floor exist in preparatory and finished form at Soane Museum, however, historically the present drawing is the most important of the group. It represents in plan and elevation Marchionni's fastidious decoration for the piano nobile, especially the famous Salone with Meng's Parnassus ceiling. Soane's attention focused on the wall surfaces into which Marchionni set ancient marbles from the Albani's collection, together with pseudo-antique bas reliefs of his own design. What interested Soane was the technique Marchionni used for displaying the dorsal portion of statues in niches by placing mirror 'Glass behind the figure' (to quote Soane's inscription on the drawing). This display technique was recollected by Soane in the organisation of his own house and reflects in the mirror-lined eccentricities of the Soane Museum.